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Asmaa's Reviews > أسفار الفراعين
أسفار الفراعين
by
by
The Pharaohs� Voyages
Interweaving the life stories of nine characters, trapped in an endless and aimless voyages inside and outside Egypt, this novel delves unpretentiously but incisively into the predicament of a society which is torn between many forces and lacking a sense of direction. Adopting a surreal approach to portray what many could see as a very real world, the book describes incessant attempts by those nine travelers to deal with a mix of environmental and man-made catastrophes: destroyed ozone layer, radiations, severe drought, epidemics, civil strife, abject poverty, collapse of the social order, coupled by the repression of a failed state.
A civil servant, who believes that he can save this god forsaken land, is engaged in a Sisyphean effort to show his superiors the way out of this morass. A lost construction worker, who was accidentally locked in the subway and ends up living there, sells drinks in the commuter trains and dreams of/remembers his lost world. A historical scribe, who escapes the Louvres to face the unintelligible modern world, tries to go back to his lost people -who are as alien as his French captors, is rejected and attracted by both. A politician, who climbed all the way up to become a minister in a system he despises, seeks to escape it only to sink deeper in its absurdities. An abused woman, who escaped the death-stricken streets of Cairo only to find herself enslaved, wanders in the hills of Arabia in a continual search for her lost freedom. A soldier, lying in the Sinai desert after his platoon abandoned him, travels with his memories between his remote village and the lost war. A disillusioned journalist, using her body to get through barriers, travels across Egypt to record a diary of death and destruction. An American diplomat, living inside a protected and artificial environment, reports on the unfolding disaster around her to a disinterested outside world. Finally, a reporter, traveling the small distance between his home and an empty news agency building, locked in his own dilemmas and inability to communicate, watches the descent towards the final and slow collapse.
Egypt and its traveling pharaohs, though the geographic locus of this novel, could be any of the torn societies that are locked in their multiple distortions and dilemmas, unable to regain balance on their own, or even to receive help.
The Pharaohs� Voyages, though apparently a hymn to the total loss of hope, is not a nihilistic verdict but an anatomy of the harsh tragedy of people who struggle to retain a measure of humanity - and even hope � in the midst of an overwhelming decay.
Interweaving the life stories of nine characters, trapped in an endless and aimless voyages inside and outside Egypt, this novel delves unpretentiously but incisively into the predicament of a society which is torn between many forces and lacking a sense of direction. Adopting a surreal approach to portray what many could see as a very real world, the book describes incessant attempts by those nine travelers to deal with a mix of environmental and man-made catastrophes: destroyed ozone layer, radiations, severe drought, epidemics, civil strife, abject poverty, collapse of the social order, coupled by the repression of a failed state.
A civil servant, who believes that he can save this god forsaken land, is engaged in a Sisyphean effort to show his superiors the way out of this morass. A lost construction worker, who was accidentally locked in the subway and ends up living there, sells drinks in the commuter trains and dreams of/remembers his lost world. A historical scribe, who escapes the Louvres to face the unintelligible modern world, tries to go back to his lost people -who are as alien as his French captors, is rejected and attracted by both. A politician, who climbed all the way up to become a minister in a system he despises, seeks to escape it only to sink deeper in its absurdities. An abused woman, who escaped the death-stricken streets of Cairo only to find herself enslaved, wanders in the hills of Arabia in a continual search for her lost freedom. A soldier, lying in the Sinai desert after his platoon abandoned him, travels with his memories between his remote village and the lost war. A disillusioned journalist, using her body to get through barriers, travels across Egypt to record a diary of death and destruction. An American diplomat, living inside a protected and artificial environment, reports on the unfolding disaster around her to a disinterested outside world. Finally, a reporter, traveling the small distance between his home and an empty news agency building, locked in his own dilemmas and inability to communicate, watches the descent towards the final and slow collapse.
Egypt and its traveling pharaohs, though the geographic locus of this novel, could be any of the torn societies that are locked in their multiple distortions and dilemmas, unable to regain balance on their own, or even to receive help.
The Pharaohs� Voyages, though apparently a hymn to the total loss of hope, is not a nihilistic verdict but an anatomy of the harsh tragedy of people who struggle to retain a measure of humanity - and even hope � in the midst of an overwhelming decay.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
November 12, 2011
– Shelved
